


Renegade

by Poplitealqueen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Accidental Force Bonds are very close to being one of my favorite things, Alcoholic Wise Grandma Maz Kanata, Fanart, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen, Leia is a badass and you should all fear her, M/M, NaNoWriMo 2016, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8726092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poplitealqueen/pseuds/Poplitealqueen
Summary: Finn wakes up on D'Qar following the destruction of Starkiller Base, and discovers four things:1) Rey is gone.2) Poe Dameron is a damn good kisser.3) He has the Force.4) That is definitely Kylo Ren's voice that he's hearing in his head.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *snaps rhythmically* Yup, it's that time of year again, boys and girls and those fine folks that are both or neither: POST NANOWRIMO.
> 
> I'm happy to say that I totally beat Nano's ass into the ground this year... with an understandable amount of tears, intense rage, and firm belief that it would be better to just throw my laptop into a tornado than allow this story to ever be seen by eyes aside from my own. Luckily, I got over it! And now I'm here to share this fic with you.
> 
> That being said, I'm not really sure *how* I want to share this fic. Would you peeps rather have one giant block chapter of around 60k words shared all at once, or would you rather have chapters split up into nice, digestible pieces shared over a prolonged period of time? Let me know.
> 
> If nobody does -- which is a very real possibility considering, well, despite the nickname, I'm not exactly *pop*ular (hahaha), and this fic is a little itty bit outside of my comfort zone -- expect sporadic updates on a schedule that makes absolutely no sense. Not even to your lovely author here. 
> 
> What else? Uh... this first chapter doesn't have a Beta Bitch. *I'm* the Beta Bitch, and I'm not particularly good at my job. I'll probably come back to fix anything that's excessively awful sooner or later, or, if I'm particularly lucky, a good Samaritan will come along and point out every minuscule flaw in my writing until I'm convinced to give it up completely.
> 
> ...*snort* I'm fucking kidding. Enjoy the first chapter!
> 
> -Miss Pop
> 
> PS: I was not kidding about being my own Beta Bitch. That part is as true as it is sad. I am Beta Bitchless for this fic! *sob* If anyone would like to possibly beta this fic in its entirety (about 200 pages, not including the possible sequel of Kix-yness) shoot me an email over at poplitealqueen@gmail.com. If you wouldn't, at least spam me with pictures of cute animals. It's the least you can do. Please.

 

_ _

_Warm lips press against his forehead, and they whisper a promise in a voice he can almost remember. By the time he does, the lips are gone, the voice is gone, her presence is gone. Finn tries to call out to her, but his mouth won’t move. Finn tries to call out to her, but his lips won’t open._

_He doesn’t remember this part._

_Rey leaves, and he doesn’t even know it._

***

In the First Order, you aren’t allowed to sleep in.

It’s the first thing they teach the kids taken from their families. The ones taken as infants are the lucky ones; they never know anything else. But the older kids, the ones that are four or five or six standard by the time they’re brought to the Order, for them it’s always hard.

They cry, they ask when they can go home, they beg for their parents, and some even fight back. The ones that don’t stop with that, even after rigorous reconditioning, eventually never return to the barracks. Nobody asks where they went; they already know they're long dead.

Finn counts himself as one of the lucky ones. That’s what Slip always told him. He doesn’t remember his family; doesn’t think he ever had one. Chances are, he was one of thousands of orphans that the First Order took under the pretense of charity. He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t particularly care. Well, not anymore, at least

Having to get up at 0400 each morning was the first in a long list of difficult things all initiates had to get used to.

And the commanders of the First Order Stormtrooper division were never lax.

Before Phasma, there was Sarn. A real bastard, son of an original 501st commando (or so he liked to say). When he wasn’t yelling, he was hitting, and it didn’t matter how old or how small an initiate was, if they pissed off Sarn they would know it.

Though Phasma was a real piece of work, Finn knew he wasn’t the only one glad when she finally replaced Sarn.

She'd been a stickler about the sleeping in, too. Though she’d been marginally kinder about it, she’d also had them getting up at 0300 each morning.

So it made perfect sense to Finn that when he woke up in the Resistance ’ s medical facility, he immediately freaked out.

The sharp beeping of medical equipment assaults him first, followed by bright lights and a beyond searing pain in his back. Finn doesn’t know where he is at first, and as memories start to flood back, he jerks up in his bed.

Starkiller Base.

Kylo Kriffing Ren.

_Rey._

“Easy, buddy, easy! She’s fine, Finn. Rey is fine.” Finn doesn’t realize he’d said that last part aloud until a familiar voice hushes him. Finn snaps his head around to find Poe smiling at him, dark eyes bright. His hands are on Finn’s face, holding it tightly, and before Finn can properly understand what the _kriff_ is going on, Poe is standing up and running off, calling out to someone that Finn doesn’t know. Finn tries to listen, but the more he attempts to concentrate, the harder it is to stay awake.

He needs to stay awake…

He needs…

to stay...

He’s awake again, and the light in the room is different. There’s a kind-looking woman with greying temples and dark eyes. “I’m glad you brought this one back with you, Dameron.” She smiles, or maybe it’s a scowl. Finn’s vision is too blurry to properly tell.

Finn loses consciousness soon after that. The last thing he recalls are warm fingers wrapped around one of his hands, and words melting into nonsense as the world fades to black.

It’s while he’s in that darkness that things get interesting.

Finn doesn’t think about his time with the First Order this time. He doesn’t really think about anything. He’s simply floating. Falling and flying at the same time. This darkness is warm and welcoming. He feels no fear while he’s in it.

As he lies suspended, a voice bursts the darkness into light. A voice Finn can’t quite hear, but that he understands implicitly.

The words themselves are lost when he wakes up a second time, but the meaning behind them, somehow, does not.

_These are your first steps._

Poe is still at his side when Finn blinks his heavy eyes open for the third time. Finn waits for unconsciousness to take him again, but it doesn’t. His mind stays exactly where it should, and after a few seconds of making sure that he can still actually move, Finn turns his head and blinks up at Poe.

Poe looks different. His pilot coveralls are replaced by a black shirt and trousers with too many pockets. His curly hair is less mussed, and the stubble he’d been sporting the last time Finn remembers seeing him has been completely shaved off. When Finn shifts moves around enough for Poe’s attention to be pulled away from the ‘pad in his hands, Poe smiles broadly.

_“Finn.”_

_“Poe.”_

Something within him that had been holding Finn back suddenly snaps, and he pushes himself up into a sitting position, only to immediately fight a sudden, unusual sense of nausea. It must have shown on his face, because Poe’s smile immediately warps into a look of concern as Finn starts to heave.

“You need Doctor Kalonia,” Poe says, already on his feet. “I’ll go get her.”

“*hck* Wait.” Finn takes a deep breath, and goes through a set of anti-nausea rituals he’d learned back during his cadet days that settles his empty stomach. Poe doesn’t move until Finn’s breathing is back to normal, at which point he sits back down and scoots his seat even closer to Finn’s bedside.

“Better?”

Finn nods, swallowing down the dryness in his throat. It feels like he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in _days,_ and -- considering the tubes feeding into his arms -- chances are that he hasn’t.

“What happened? Where are we?”

Poe takes a deep breath. “Want the good news first, or the bad news?”

“Bad news with a bit of optimism.” Finn blinks, taken aback by his own words. For some strange reason, that doesn’t sound like something he would say.

Poe doesn’t seem to notice, not that Finn expects him to, and chuckles. “I can’t believe you made me laugh before telling you this,” he mumbles. “You were hurt when Starkiller Base was destroyed.”

So it _was_ destroyed. Finn feels a tension he hadn’t even really known was there before lift off his shoulders, only to return with a vengeance when he remembers…

“Rey! Where’s Rey? Is she okay?”

An erratic amount of accompanies his words. It’s from a life sign monitoring device beside his bed.

“Rey’s fine. I guess you probably don’t remember me telling you that before.” Poe puts both of his hands around one of Finn’s. “She gone, though. She left to go find Luke Skywalker.”

_Rey’s gone._

Finn is surprised by how much knowing that stings, when he himself had been ready to do the same thing to her back on Takodana. No. Rey wouldn’t just leave him unless she had a good reason. Finn knows that for certain, or he hopes it with such fervor that it feels like certainty. Either way, at least he knows Rey is still alive.

Oh, but right. He’d been hurt too, apparently.

“What happened to me?” Finn asks.

Poe stares at him like he’s just told a joke. “Don’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“Your _back._ ”

“My--? _Oh._ ” Ever so faintly, the memory of his fight with Kylo Ren returns to Finn. It feels like it’s coming from a long way off, and for some strange reason, Finn feels like he’s watching it from two separate vantage points. He doesn’t remember the fight just one way, but thinking about it makes his head start to spin.

His back is numb, that much is certain, but there isn’t any pain. But the more Finn remembers, and then forgets as soon as he does, the more his face begins to hurt from his forehead down between his brows and across right cheek.

Finn feels at his cheek. “He got me in the face too, didn’t he? Hurts like hell.”

Poe gives him a funny look. “Your face is fine, Finn. Here,” he fishes a mirror out out the bedside table and hands it to him. “See?” he flashes a grin. “Still cute.”

Finn’s glad the mirror is blocking his face from Poe, because he’s smiling like a complete idiot, and he’s fairly sure he’d try to kiss the damn pilot if he could see his face.

He might just try it anyway.

But before that he looks at his reflection. It’s exactly like Poe said: his face _is_ fine. Finn turns his head this way and that, but there’s nothing to show why it feels like a flametrooper had set half his face on fire.

He pulls aside the collar of his hospital gown to check his shoulder, too. Nothing there either. Weird.

Finn shrugs it off and sets the mirror down. Poe manages to kiss him first.

For a moment, Finn is simultaneously full of air and not breathing at all. Poe’s lips are soft, non-insistent, waiting for him to kiss back before things go any further. Finn does kiss back, of course, he kisses back with everything he has. Before he knows it, his hands are cupping Poe’s jaw and Poe’s are curling on his chest and holding the back of his neck.

This was definitely, completely, worth the wait.

But just as mouths open and tongues meet, Poe’s soft moans turn into sounds of alarm. Finn doesn’t realize why at first, not until he opens his eyes and looks around the room. He doesn’t break the kiss off, of course.

“Mm!” Poe grunts into his mouth.

“Mm?” Finn responds and finally, regretfully, pulls away completely. “What?”

“Look!”

Finn takes a moment to look around the room, and can’t help the soft, “What the kriff” that escapes him when he sees objects that have no place in floating suspended in the air around the room. Plasts, clipboards, beakers, even the extra chair.

Poe nearly knocks over his own seat when he stands up, staring at the floating plasts and beakers and chair in the air with utter awe on his features.

“What’s going on? Are you doing this?”

Finn isn’t sure, but even as he’s asked the question, the chair seems to wobble in answer. “I think so,” he says.

Poe shakes his head slightly, still smiling."How?"

Finn is wondering the exact same thing (and he’s also wondering how he can make it stop so they can get back to kissing). "I dunno!"

Poe’s chair shakes and it begins to lift up into the air as well.

Poe starts laughing. "Finn, this is amazing!"

Finn can’t help but think the same, even if he isn’t able to control where anything flies without an extended amount of effort. Poe notices him staring at a floating beaker drifting beside the plasts, and points to it.

“Think you can move that towards me?”

“Can you fly anything with an engine?”

A smile bursts on Poe’s face, all gleaming teeth and bright eyes. “So you do still believe me even after I crashed?”

Finn does the only thing he’s seen other Force sensitives do: he holds out his hand, palm facing the the beaker, and… even he isn’t sure what he’s doing. Thinking? Feeling? Something causes the beaker to begin to shiver, and then to begin to drift towards Poe.

Poe holds his hands open to catch it, an awestruck look on his face.

“I knew you could do it,” he says proudly. “You’re amazing, Finn. You’re--”

The door on the far wall suddenly slides open, and like strings on a marionette being cut, all the things that had been floating came crashing down. The plast didn’t make much of a mess or a sound, the beakers and hypos and the one other chair mostly certainly did.

To their credit, neither of the two women that had just walked in paid it much mind. The taller of the two -- a woman with a playful eyes set in an hawkish face, came directly over to Finn’s side, datapad in hand, and flashed a light into his eyes.

The other, a smaller woman with her dark hair pulled up into an immaculate series of buns and a severe sort of look to her, remained standing at the foot of his bed beside Poe, hands held against the small of her back. She glances around at the mess around them with a raised eyebrow, but doesn’t say a word.

“How are you feeling, Finn?” The taller woman asks, flashing the light into his other eye. “What’s your pain level?”

Finn squints at the light, and then blinks rabidly when it’s taken away. “Um… manageable?”

The tall woman taps a few things into her datapad. “Really?” She says, not looking up. “Your spine was nearly severed by a lightsaber.”

“What?!”

The doctor, because there was nobody else she could be, finally looks up at him and smiles. “You’ve had a remarkable recovery. Faster than anything I’ve read about before, save the Jedi. Turn onto your stomach, please.”

Finn does as he’s asked, and as he shifts onto his right arm, he starts to feel exactly what kind of pain he should be going through. It’s almost like moving pulls him out of a trance he hadn’t even known he was in.

“Ah! Fuck.”

The doctor presses a cold hand to the back of his neck. “Feeling it now, are we?”

Finn winces. “Yeah. Shoulder.”

The doctor hums in sympathy, but still urges him to roll completely over. Finn eventually does, wincing as the skin on his shoulder -- and his back -- stretch and burn with the slight movement.

Cool air tickles his back as the bacta-covered bandages are pulled back. When the sticky residue tugs at the very center of his back, a bolt of pain cracks along Finn’s nerve endings. He screams.

“Finn!” Poe pushes to his feet, but he’s stopped by the smaller woman gently cupping his elbow.

“I’m fine, Poe.” He isn’t. Pain is squeezing itself into every part of his being, and he can’t believe he ever thought this was “manageable”.

“You are definitely better than you should be.” The doctor clicks her tongue above him. “This is truly extraordinary. I haven’t seen regenerative abilities this strong since Luke and yourself, General.”

Finn cranes his head around to get a second look at the woman. _Slag, that’s right._ How the kriff did he forget about General Leia? Before he can put the question into words, a hypo presses against the wound on his back.

Finn manages to hold his scream down to a sharp intake of breath, but all three people standing turn when the glass of the walls begins to crack.

“Harter, is he the one doing that?” General Leia asks, the only hint of her surprise shown in the slight widening of her eyes.

“I’m not sure,” the doctor responds, her voice slightly breathless with surprise, “It is possible.”

Poe finally finds his words again. “It is him,” he exclaims. “He made everything in the room float as soon as he woke up. Er, sorry for the mess, by the way.”

The General waves a negligent hand about the apology, and focuses back on Finn and Harter.

“Finn, do you have any Force sensitivity?”

The question has a biting edge to it. A slight one, but one nonetheless. The distrust hurts Finn slightly, but he understands it. If he were a Force sensitive infiltrator, the Resistance would be as good as a memory.

“Not that I know of,” he says honestly. “This is the first time this has ever happened to me, ma’am.”

“There’s no need for ma’am. Call me Leia.”

Finn spots Poe’s eyes widening marginally beside the small General. That must mean that being told you can use her first name must be important.

“No, Leia,” Finn amends, the name falling out of his mouth awkwardly. “They tested me for it in the First Order. They told me I wasn’t Force sensitive at all.”

He still remembers that well enough. He couldn’t have been more than four standard when they’d done it, and shortly afterward he’d been put back into his cadet uniform and sent back to Stormtrooper Training. That was as a obvious a no as he had ever gotten, but it spoke loud and clear.

The General crosses her arms over chest, the fingers of her right hand tapping a rhythm on her left arm. She looks away from him, deep in thought.

“Should I keep him in isolation a bit longer, General?” Doctor Halonia had since moved away from Finn and to her desk, where she was typing into her terminal with rapidly. Finn hasn’t ever met someone beside droids that could input keystrokes so quickly, least of all while holding a conversation.

The General looks from Kalonia to Poe and finally back to Finn as he goes through the arduous task of turning back over into a seated position. It takes some work, and more than a bit of minor discomfort, but Finn is able to do it on his own.

“It’s your decision,” she tells him. “Would you like to stay here?”

Finn can’t figure out what she wants him to say exactly. Thinking about what she means by “here” causes a spot in his chest to tighten, and a tickle runs down his throat.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” he says.

For the first time since she’d come in, Finn sees the General’s stern face soften. A slight smile tugs on one side of her lips.

“I don’t mean you need to leave this base personally. I meant the infirmary.”

“Oh.” Finn runs a hand over his head anxiously (and surprisingly, when he finds how long his hair has grown.) “Well, if I’m a danger--”

“He isn’t a danger,” Poe cuts in. He gives Finn a quick, ‘Sorry, buddy’ look and then turns back to Leia. “I can keep an eye on him.”

“And we have plenty of inhibitor drugs I could put him on,” Kalonia chimes in, and then adds, “with no adverse side-effects, don’t worry.”

Finn takes both of these into account, before answering again, much more confidently.

“I would like to leave the infirmary.”

Leia nods. “Then you’re free to go.”

Finn hears Kalonia sigh in resignation, the General is simply standing there waiting, and Poe is utterly ecstatic. It only takes about fifteen minutes for Finn to be unhooked from all the machinery and medical tubing he’d been in, and another thirty for Kalonia to explain to him that he’ll need to come back as soon as he’s settled in whatever quarters they have prepared for him so that she can show him how the bacta suit he'll be wearing functions.

(“You won’t get very far without one on, I’m afraid. Your back will give out unless it’s in a constant state of healing.”)

Finn says ‘yes’ and ‘mhmm’ and ‘sure’ where it seems necessary, but his eyes keep drifting back to Poe smiling.

He’s ready to leave.It’s never been easy for him to remain still.

He stays on his feet for the better part of thirty seconds, before he topples over and Poe has to help him back onto the bed.

Leia is still standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed and eyebrow crooked in a way that screams, _“You shouldn’t be so quick to run off, young man.”_

“Looks like you won’t be leaving me quite yet,” Kalonia says with a cheery grin.

***

Later that night, at a work desk stuffed in the corner of the Resistance’s meager infirmary, Harter Kalonia fiddles with a delicate piece of machinery.

The gadget is old, at least by Leia’s estimation. Yet Harter continues to pluck at buttons and tweak wiring, so engrossed in her work that she doesn’t notice Leia until she’s almost on top of her.

“You know we have Jedi Readers, right?” says Leia, injecting as much humor as she can into the statement. Harter doesn’t seem to take it the wrong way as she she sets her tools down and stares at the handheld machine like it just insulted her.

“I refuse to use a Jedi Reader,” Kalonia says, rubbing at her eyes before returning to the small device. “They’re inhumane. This--” she holds up the device for a moment’s inspection “-- is a midichlorian tester. They say the Jedi Order used to use these to test potential students. Just a prick, they examine your blood, and there you have it.”

Leia nods. “Continue your work then, doctor.”

“Oh, General, one thing,” Kalonia adds as Leia turns to leave. “I need someone I know to be Force sensitive already to test it.” She waves Leia over. “Care to be my subject?”

Leia raises an eyebrow as she makes her way back across the room and seats herself on one of the tall, steel medical stools. She rolls up her sleeve and holds her arm out to the doctor, who shows some teeth as she presses the small instrument against the soft skin of Leia’s inner elbow.

“This might sting a little.”

Leia doesn’t so much as flinch when the hypo presses through her skin for the lesser part of a second. Needles haven’t bothered her at all since the first Death Star.

The tiny machine beeps and Kalonia pulls back, slipping it into a reader and allowing the data to pour across her ‘pad.

“You have a midichlorian count of… 14,500. You should be quite proud.”

Leia chuckles as she rolls her sleeve back down. “I already am, I’ve known the count for years.”

Kalonia scoffs. “Let me have my moment, would you? At least we know it works. Oh, I feel like a Jedi myself doing this. Exciting, isn’t it? Now, just need to input Finn’s blood sample and… “ The sudden shrill series of beeps the machine makes causes them both to jump a bit in their seats.

“Don’t tell me the damn thing is broken,” Leia says, pressing her hands over her ears as the counter continues to beep. Kalonia’s eyes are widening at the data, and she quickly turns to her terminal and begins to type. Aurebesh flashing in her glasses.

“No, it isn’t broken, but my expectations certainly are. It's impossible that the First Order wasn't aware of this.”

The counter finally stops beeping, and Leia pulls her hands away from her ears and looks and Kalonia curiously. She knows she must have _that_ look. Han always said she got _that_ look whenever something even potentially serious was about to happen. “What’s his count, Harter?”

Kalonia continues to type for a few seconds more before leaning back, hands squeezing the edge of her desk.

“It’s 30,000.”

 

***

Light years across the galaxy, in the midst of the First Order fleet, Kylo Ren jerks awake.

He’s floating in a bacta tank, a dull numbness running down his face and across his left shoulder. It aches, but not as much as his back.

It _burns._

But he’s used to pain. In fact, he’s learned to crave it. It makes him strong. He’d never considered himself strong before he’d joined the Knights of Ren, and Snoke had made sure to drill the same lesson to him time and time again, until his body bled and his mind was in tatters.

Pain is power. Given or received.

Kylo allows it to force him into action, and arches his back forward, hands already moving to tear the breathing mask from his mouth.

He can see dark forms rushing around outside the filmy glaze he’s stuck behind.

Faint voices filter to him.

“He’s awake!”

“Alert General Hux, now!”

An alarm beeps and the fluid begins to drain, but not fast enough.

Kylo shatters the glass with one violent push of the Force, falling forward and landing on his knees amongst blue ooze and transparisteel-glass shards.

He surges to his feet, letting the sharp bite against the soles of his feet help him to move faster. He grabs the first unfortunate medical officer that scurries too close to him. The young man quakes in his Force hold. Pathetic.

He really needs to break something. Right now.

Kylo sucks in a breath, voice raspy from disuse.

“Where…in the _Hells_ …is my lightsaber?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux and Kylo get some quality, totally-not-pre-shipping-what-are-you-talking-about-lol alone time.
> 
> Kylo also starts to realize he doesn't have his mind to himself anymore. HM. Wonder who THAT could possibly be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos, dear readers. It was much more than I was expecting! That makes me happy, and a happy Pop is a frequent updater.
> 
> The general consensus between folks (all two of them that were kind enough to answer my question) was that smaller chapters would be easier than one giant block of a chapter, so that's the route we're going! It's the weekend now and I have no life, so expect another chapter or two before Monday.
> 
> Am I forgetting any other points? No, I don't believe so. Enjoy the chapter!
> 
> -Pop
> 
> PS: I was forgetting something important. This is once again Beta-read by yours truly, so mistakes? Probably lots. Nobody else to blame but myself.

Hux’s arrival with the moment that Kylo finishes choking a second doctor to death. Kylo allows the body to crumple to the ground, and Hux doesn’t even give it a second glance as he walks over to wear Kylo stands.

Hux’s pale eye glance around at the mess Kylo has made made, but he doesn’t say a word about it. Instead, with pursed lips, he shrugs off his large coat, steps up to Kylo -- closer than any of the other First Order staff would dare to come -- and holds it out to him.

“Cover yourself.”

Kylo holds Hux’s gaze for a second longer before grabbing the greatcoat and draping it over his shoulders. It doesn’t go past his knees, and he can feel the gaberwool material stretching against the wider width of his shoulders.

He isn’t going to button it up, and Hux doesn’t press the issue. He knows well enough how far he can go, most of the time.

Glass crunches beneath heavy bootheels and digs into the soft flesh of Kylo’s feet as they make their way out of the infirmary area, bloody footprints trailing after them.

When they reach a turbolift, walk inside, and the doors slide shut in front of them with a button press, Kylo finds that Hux has an uncharacteristically tense aura about him. He probes along the feeling with the Force, but Hux blocks his advances before too long.

“If I catch you digging through my mind again, Ren, I will see to it that you are reprimanded,” Hux warns. Kylo knows the threat holds no actual truth -- the only one that has any true power over him is Supreme Leader Snoke, and Snoke wouldn’t care whose mind he’d been intruding upon within the First Order. He never had before.

“Where’s my lightsaber?” Kylo asks, conceding to Hux for the time being. He can always find answers within the General’s mind later. It’s better to give him a chance to be honest on his own. Kylo values the truth.

Hux doesn’t respond, and lift grinds to a halt and the doors drift open to reveal a tall, chromium-clad individual.

“You’re alive,” Kylo says.

“So are you,” Phasma replies with her usual, tart, not-quite-haughty flare as she steps onto the lift with them. The doors close neatly behind her and the lift continues its descent.

Nobody says a word for some time, and nothing moves saves for Hux jamming his thumb down on the LOCK button so that no one else can stop their lift to get one.

Kylo looks over and up and Phasma. She looks relatively the same, save for a few new scratches on her otherwise unscathed armor. He can’t sense much from her, she keeps her thoughts even more tightly under wraps than Hux, but Kylo presses along the Force and into her mind anyway. She --

“Get out of my head or I will break you.”

Kylo only retreats quickly because he knows for a fact that she _can_ and _would._

_ _

**(by[ozzy698](http://ozzy698.tumblr.com/))**

The lift reaches a level where a passcard is required to continue, and after a bit of faint grousing from Hux and a swift, impatient swipe of a card, they continue on their way.

“I heard you had your arse handed to you by that girl,” Phasma says after a time.

“I heard you were thrown down a garbage shute,” Kylo responds, while grinding the bottom of one foot into the floor of the lift.

“And I saved you both.” Hux says acidly. “Now kindly shut it, the _both_ of you, before I regret that decision any more than I already do.”

When they reach the deck where Kylo’s quarters are, after what seems like an eternity, Phasma exists first and waits beside the open lift doors for Kylo and Hux to walk out as well.

As they step past her, Kylo pauses and asks, kinder than he has with anyone else, “Have you seen my lightsaber, Captain?”

She doesn’t respond, which means she doesn’t know. Kylo leaves it at that.

Phasma stalks behind them like a shadow before breaking off from their impromptu trio to go down a different fork in the corridor, her armorweave cape billowing behind her.

“Did you think I was going to kill you in that turbolift, Hux?” Kylo asks, once Phasma is gone from sight.

Hux breathes loudly through his nose, a step away from snorting derisively. “Were you?”

“Don’t call Phasma on me again.”

“What makes you think I did such a thing?” Hux asks, with manufactured curiosity.

“I know you did.”

“You don’t know as much as you think, Ren.”

They reach the door to Kylo’s quarters and Hux waits for Kylo to palm it open with a sour look on his face.

“I’ll wait here for you to freshen up,” he says disparagingly. “Don’t get any blood on my coat.”

Kylo doesn’t respond to that as the door splits open and he walks through. It slides shut quietly behind him, and he’s plunged into the familiar, cold dimness of his rooms.

Aside from the large table of ashes (which he sifts a hand through absentmindedly as he passes by it) that his Grandfather’s helmet rests upon, Kylo’s quarters are as utilitarian as the rest of the Finalizer. Grey on black on slightly darker grey. There isn’t any color where the First Order is involved, no room for individuality.

Kylo shrugs off Hux’s greatcoat, but instead of letting it crumple to a heap on the floor -- like he would have preferred -- he lays it flat on his bunk and makes his way into his personal refresher.

Peeling off his bacta-hardened underwear proved more of a hassle than he thought it would be. Days spent suspended in bacta tends to leave fine motor skills depleted, and the longer it takes him to simply grasp the waistband and yank the boxers down, the angrier Kylo gets.

By the time he does shimmy out of them and move into the shower, Kylo feels in the mood to murder. It was smart of Hux to stay outside of his quarters.

Hot water hits his back and slides down the length of his body, washing away residual bacta and blood. The slivers of glass puncturing his foot come next, the smaller pieces washed out while the larger need to be tugged. The cuts on the soles of his feet sting from the heat of the water, but Kylo rides the pain until it doesn’t matter anymore, until it’s much a part of him as breathing.

His back no longer hurts, save for a dull, numb throbbing, yet when Kylo finishes his shower and moves in front of the mirror to inspect himself, he finds no mark on his back. Odd.

His face is an entirely different matter. Rey’s rage had left its mark, in more ways than one. The wound crossing over his face is still an angry, welted red, pulsing with pain if he squeezes his eyebrows together or frowns too deeply, stretching the ruined skin. He’s lucky that he still has both of his eyes, and the ability to breathe through his nose. Still…

Carefully, Kylo brings his right hand up and probes at the scar. He starts at the flesh around the wound, slowly moving inward until his fingers are digging into the scar itself. The pain is enough to bring tears to his eyes, but Kylo continues. He presses and presses and presses…

He no longer wants to train that girl.

He wants to kill her.

As the pain from his scar starts to dull, Kylo looks down the length of his body. The only other wound of any substantial merit is the one on his shoulder. A slight burn from his duel with the traitor, FN-2187. It’s almost pathetic compared to the destruction caused to him by Rey.

Yet Kylo can’t stop looking at it.

Something, about either the forming scar itself or, maybe, even the rogue stormtrooper himself is calling to him in a way he has never felt before. The longer he looks, the more something seems to tug at his mind, and when he finally brings his hand up to touch the scar on his shoulder as he had the one on his face, white spots flash in his eyes.

Shields. Kylo pulls up the defenses he has set into his mind to keep from having it read by other Force sensitives. It still doesn’t keep Kylo from stumbling back from the utter strength behind whoever was digging through his mind. Whoever it is does it with a strength, an _intimacy_ , that Kylo has never known before.

When it stops, it stop abruptly. Like a blink. Kylo finds himself shaking, the tiled floor wobbling and spinning beneath him. He half-walks half-falls against the sink beneath the mirror, and holds onto it tightly as he orientates himself.

What was that, thinks Kylo. _Who_ was that?

Someone had access to his mind, and Kylo’s immediate concern is praying it isn’t Rey.

It isn’t, though. He isn’t sure how he knows that, but he does. He’d felt Rey in his mind before, felt her unusually insistent strength. Whoever this was, they were strong as well but with not an iota of intent. They hadn’t been digging, or, at least, they hadn’t known they’d been digging.

The ‘fresher starts to right itself, and Kylo focuses on his reflection to bring himself back completely. His long, black hair is still wet and pressed against his head and neck. Only a few stray strands obscure his vision.

Kylo squints, clinging to the link before it completely slips away and following it as far as he can. He sees...the stormtrooper, the one that had defected. And then, that pilot. Dameron. The girl, Rey, and…

It’s barely a glimpse, half of a second of a familiar face, but it’s enough to send Kylo reeling. He slams up shields once more as quickly as he can, the most powerful he knows how to, but they aren’t quite enough to hide that glimpse from her.

That glimpse of his Mother.

A familiar burn of resentment floods through him, and, as always, he isn’t sure whether it’s directed at himself or Han Solo. _It can’t be directed at Solo,_ Kylo tells himself earnestly. Solo is dead. _The light should no longer have a hold over me._

Yet each time he repeats that, the words sounds more and more hollow. Lies. Kylo ducks his head forward and wraps his hands around his temples, squeezing as hard as he possibly can.

_He should no longer feel the light._

**_He shouldn’t._ **

_Could she be the one reading my mind?_

The thought comes to him unbidden, and Kylo silently curses himself for thinking Solo had been the end of it. Maybe… maybe one sacrifice wasn’t enough. To have all the power, perhaps he had to sacrifice _all_ that Ben Solo had once had. Perhaps, perhaps…

Perhaps he should speak to Snoke about this.

Hux’s charcoal-grey greatcoat is still on his bunk, draped across the equally grey metal that Kylo calls a bed (not that he ever sleeps on it). As Kylo perches on the edge and stares at his Grandfather’s helmet, he finds his hands grabbing at the coat and throwing it over his shoulders as he walks out into the brightly-lit corridor. Hux is still waiting for him, standing rigidly in parade-rest. Kylo wonders somewhere in the back of his mind if the man is ever truly relaxed, and doubts it.

Hux scowls at his appearance. “I thought you were going to freshen up.”

“I did.” It’s not his dark attire, not quite as grandiose as the outfit he’d worn at Starkiller Base, but grey trousers over a grey tunic is the best he has for now. Snoke wouldn’t care. Something as inconsequential as appearance meant little to him.

Hux still rolls his eyes, and turns smartly on his heel to put a bit of distance between himself and Kylo as they head to Snoke’s meeting hall.

Hux’s boots click against the polished floor of the Finalizer’s central corridor, echoing off of the bulkhead walls and straight into Kylo’s growing headache. _Click. Click. Click_. As if the overhead fixtures weren’t bad enough, Kylo thinks darkly, and entertains the notion of slashing something with his lightsaber. The thought brings back to his mind a very pressing concern.

“You never told me where my lightsaber was,” Kylo says to Hux’s back. The smaller man doesn’t shrink away from the warning in his voice, but Kylo senses a distinct hackling of the Force around him.

“You’re nervous.”

That makes Hux stop, and the staccato _click click click_ of his heels reverberates for a moment after he does.

“You mistake impatience for fear,” Hux glances over his shoulder, pale eye scathing, “but seeing as how you are a complete imbecile, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

He had to know how Kylo would react to such a blatant insult. Hux isn’t foolish enough to slander a Ren out of perceived friendship or power; he knows who he follows, and he knows who he leads. It’s what makes him palatable to Snoke, even if that inherent ability to understand his own limits causes him to push boundaries he otherwise shouldn’t.

Hux inhales sharply when Kylo wraps the Force around his slim, pale throat, but, to his credit, he doesn’t flinch. His face is set in a rictus of calm fury as Kylo circles in front of him.

Kylo holds up his left hand so that Hux can see his fingers curling inward as the Force closes around his throat.

“Where is my lightsaber?” Kylo asks, softly.

Hux tilts his chin up -- an instinctive, animalistic move that has nothing to do with terror.

“It’s in my quarters awaiting repairs,” he says. “You should count yourself lucky that I grabbed it, and even luckier that your kyber crystal wasn’t any more damaged by that girl and renegade stormtrooper than it already was.”

Kylo would have liked to snap Hux’s neck right then and there, to feel his bones break and muscles burst, but he holds himself back. The girl and the stormtrooper. _Rey._ He quickly shakes thoughts of her out of his head, and focuses back on the First Order General. He holds himself back, because he isn’t the only one Hux is defiant towards. That’s something to be respected. Valued.

With one swift movement, Kylo releases Hux, and the General staggers as a series of dry coughs escape him. When he’s finally breathing normally again, Hux is pink in the face and glaring daggers into Kylo. Kylo doesn’t particularly care, and soon enough Hux realises that as well. He straightens up, eyes waters, and tugs his high collar back into place.

“Don’t lie to me again,” Kylo warns.

Hux rolls his eyes and brushes past Kylo with an indignant huff. “It isn’t a lie to reminded that you were beaten. Leveling some worthless village on a worthless planet and one scum-bucket drinking hole on another are so far your only victories, and you had my help.”

Kylo  straightens up to his full height. “What do you want from me, Hux? A thank you?”

Hux’s glacial blue eyes don’t leave him once as he says, “I want you to stop glowering and get yourself together. We still have a job to do, and it’s a job best done together.”

 

***

Kylo hasn’t felt this nervous to see Snoke since he’d been a youngling. Hux, for all his staunch refusal to show actual emotional, seems to pick up on that. He pauses before opening the door and announcing their presence, and looks up at Kylo silently.

“Why does he want to see me?” Kylo asks, staring at the archway leading into Snoke’s chambers.

Hux raises an immaculate brow at him. “You were nearly killed by an untrained girl and an ex-stormtrooper, and Starkiller Base was destroyed. The Supreme Leader isn’t pleased.”

“Starkiller Base wasn’t my fault.”

Hux’s merciful hesitation passes, and presses a button that slides the halves of the door apart. He passes under the archway with Kylo at his side onto a polished, obsidian-black walkway. “My sources tell me that it was the pilot Poe Dameron that fired the final shot.

Kylo’s cheek twitches, and his scar hurts from the movement. _Of course it was._

They stop, shoulder to shoulder, at the entrance to the inner meeting hall. Kylo notices with a bit of unplaced glee that he isn’t the only one hesitating to walk through.

“Are you scared, Hux?”

The General’s throat bobs beneath his collar as he swallows.  “No more than you. Let’s get this over with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo *literally* has Darth Vader's helmet resting on a table of his enemies' ashes, I shit you not. That is canon. He is that much of an edgy edgelord. Gotta appreciate that about him. I know I do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mah boi Snokey bein' creepy wit his half-carcass face and all that jazz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, folks! Sorry for the radio silence. Things have been cuh-razy, and I mean bonkers-loopy-bananas, for me the last couple weeks. I appreciate your support for this fic, and GODDAMN thank you for helping me to break 100 kudos on only two chapters! Expect more updates now that we've entered the glorious wonderland of winter break.
> 
> I have a favorite character being introduced vaguely in this chapter. (No, it isn't Snoke, although there is a special place in my heart for him)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> -Pop
> 
> PS: Almost forgot. Who was my Beta Bitch this chapter? Das right, me. So any mistakes are wholly mine, and once you're done pointing and laughing, I'd appreciate having them shown to me so that I might fix them.
> 
> PSS: I drew a cover for this fic, since it is a Nano project and needed one. Hop on back to chapter one if you'd like to see it.

They walk in as one, shoulder-to-shoulder and stride-for-stride. The bright lights of the Finalizer’s corridors immediately give way to a heavy, cold dark. Pale working lights are the only thing illuminating the walkway to Supreme Leader Snoke’s holo-throne. It isn’t half as grandiose as the one on Starkiller Base had been, but it gets the job done.

The glass of the walkway doesn’t echo their footsteps, but the pedestal still flickers before portraying Snoke’s mammoth form ahead of them. The First Order has access to the latest technology; the _strongest_  technology, but Kylo has hardly ever been impressed with most of it.

The ability to create a hologram that looks so real has always taken his breath away, however. He still remembers his first meeting Snoke, and thinking for sure that he must truly be as big as seemed. Kylo still doesn’t know for sure, he’s only ever known Snoke through a proxy, but he largely hopes Snoke is slightly less terrifying in person.

Hollow eyes set in a dead-flesh face peer down at him, pulling back each layer of his mind one at a time with no effort.

“Kylo Ren,” he rasps out, and Kylo immediately drops his gaze at the next words. “You failed, didn’t you?”

Kylo continues to stare at the ground. _The boy is wise, to grovel so,_ he hears Snoke think. “Master, I killed Han Solo as you commanded, but I still feel the pull of the Light.” One of his hands strays to the bandages covering one of his eyes, and presses against them until Kylo winces. “It’s even stronger now. I want to be rid of it.”

Snoke’s dispassionate silence has its desired effect. Kylo ducks his head lower, dark hair covering his features, and murmurs, “Please, help me to become stronger.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

Kylo doesn’t say a word, just keeps his chin tucked against his throat and his thoughts as vague as possible. That seems to have been the wrong thing to do. Snoke exhales, and a shiver runs from Kylo’s scalp down the length of his spine. He can feel Snoke’s invasive and insistent presence prodding at his thoughts.

“I sense something different about you,” intones the Supreme Leader almost conversationally. “Tell me. What is it?”

An explanation lodges itself in Kylo’s throat, and sticks there no matter how hard he tries to move it. Snoke knows about that unfamiliar yet familiar presence in the Force; he knows that Kylo is too weak to protect his own mind.

 _If he’s seen as weak, Snoke will never train him properly. Snoke will never train him as he_ needs _to be trained._

Kylo presses down onto one knee, reveling in the painful stretch of tortured skin. “There is nothing wrong,” he says and looks up at the Supreme Leader.

Kylo doesn’t blink, doesn’t hesitate, and that tells Snoke all he needs to know.

“And you’re sure of this?”

Kylo forces himself to keep his gaze steady on the Supreme leader. He can feel Snoke assessing him, and beside him, he can feel Hux’s vague annoyance at this display of weakness. Kylo couldn’t care less about that.

“I won’t fail you again, Supreme Leader,” Kylo insists, and his eyes -- the one not still bruised half-shut, that is -- stares at the Supreme Leader with a wild fervency that Snoke knows to be the boy’s greatest strength.

Snoke blinks slowly, his eyelids creeping across his eyeballs like death creeps across the living.  “Very well. But.” He regards Kylo like an object, head cocked and thin-boned finger scratching thoughtful into the hole on his cheek. “That does not excuse your failure with Starkiller Base. What shall you do to redeem yourself?”

“Anything,” Kylo says, hurriedly. “I’ll do anything.”

Snoke’s hand leaves his face and comes to lay on his armrest. What could almost be a smile pulls at his absent lips. “Very good. You will seek the tomb of the Consecrated Eremite.”

Kylo’s eyebrows raise in a silent question, but he doesn’t speak it. It’s General Hux that asks it instead, stepping forward with his hands clasped neatly behind his back. “Am I to help him in this, Supreme Leader?”

“No.” Snoke allows his voice to boom, delighting in the shudder it does throughout the room. “He must find it himself, and if he does not, he will die.”

Kylo stoops his head lower, nodding. “I will not fail you again.”

“See that you don’t, Kylo Ren.”

 

***

The hologram feed disconnects, and Snoke leans back in his throne and listens to the whispers of the dark.

They tell him the most interesting things.

The least, and yet most serious of which, being that Kylo Ren is slipping from his grasp.

“Azer Ren.” Snoke whispers, and at his shoulder, a shape emerges from the endless shadows. Snoke’s oldest pawn is silent, awaiting orders.

“I may sending you to Kylo soon. I sense that there is something he is not telling me. Do not allow that to galvanize into unwanted action.”

Snoke doesn’t need to see Azer nod. He knows his orders will be obeyed, as they always are.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Finn get some quality alone time *eyebrow wriggle* *knowing wink* *pelvic thrust*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the the zesty **[zheawesomest](http://zheawesomest.tumblr.com/)** , the super **[sanerontheinside](http://sanerontheinside.tumblr.com/)** , the terrific **[tonkshamsandwich](http://tonkshamsandwich.tumblr.com/)** , and the delightful **[demad69](http://demad69.tumblr.com/)**. Thanks, you four! (And an especially big thanks to Saner, who went back through chapters 1-3 and pointed out some of the atrocious mistakes I'd left behind. Ahhh.)

PT is a bitch, but it isn't half as difficult as Finn had suspected it would be.

Poe says it has to be because of his newly-awakened Force powers; Doctor Kalonia says it's because of her impeccable care. Finn isn't really sure which to thank, probably both, but he's become so focused on getting to the point that he can actually leave his bed without help that he’s largely put thoughts of anything else aside.

It takes three more weeks, and near-constant insistence that he’s up for it, before Doctor Kalonia deems Finn fit enough to leave the medical area.

“Now, remember what I told you-- “ Kalonia says as she helps him into his bacta suit.

The bacta suit is perhaps the strangest thing Finn has to get used to. It’s similar to a body glove, except for the cool press against the skin of his back where bacta is filtered constantly against the wound Kylo had given him. He can see why other people have said no to it: the thing is suffocating, even for someone who spent most of his life in a suit of plastisteel. But since it meant he’d be able to leave within a few weeks instead of a few months, he can learn to live with it.

Finn takes a deep breath. “Pruritus and pain are normal, no strenuous activity for the next few weeks, no zero-g, and come back twice a rotation to make sure the suit hasn’t been compromised.” Finn replies by rote, smiling at the doctor as he pushes his head through the top hole of his shirt. It’s a soft, nondescript grey, like what he’s seen most of the other Resistance fighters wearing.

Kalonia smirks back at him. “And?”

“And what, ma’am?”

Kalonia sighs and shakes her head. “Hells, you’re so polite. I’m not used to it,” she pats his shoulder fondly. “Come and visit me once in awhile, Finn, outside of the necessary health visits. Yours is the first lightsaber wound I’ve ever treated, but that doesn’t mean that’s all you are to me. I’ve grown rather fond of you.”

Finn nods, heat pooling in his face. “Of course, doctor. Thank you. For everything.”

 

***

 

It surprises Finn how quiet the Resistance base on D’Qar is. Then again, the only other time he’d been here had been in the middle of a crisis.

He walks down the main thoroughfare with Poe, his back ramrod straight thanks to the bacta suit beneath his clothing. The long, unbroken line of duracrete doubles as the take-off zone for the Resistance’s aerial squadrons, or so Poe tells him as he keeps close to Finn’s side.

“See, right there?” Poe points. “That’s where we ran into each other before Starkiller, remember?”

“Yeah.” Finn grins at the memory, until what came after comes rushing back. “I'm so sorry about your jacket.”

Poe waves a hand dismissively through the air. “That old thing? It’s fine. Better it than you.”

Finn pulls a face. “I really liked that jacket.”

“Oh. Well, then.” Poe quickly changes tack, and at the same time grabs Finn’s right hand to lead him down a small path to the left, towards the barracks. “My dad taught me how to sew. I’m sure I can fix it.”

“That’s… I’d love that, Poe.”

Poe Dameron is becoming even more amazing by the minute. Finn also can’t help the sudden flutter of excitement in his chest over the fact that Poe has stuck with him nearly every day of his recovery, even going so far as to visit him before and after missions from the General. And Poe still hasn’t let go of his hand. He must have made a face, because Poe glances down at their joined hands with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He shifts his hand around until their fingers are comfortably interlaced together, and squeezes.

It takes Finn a few beats to remember he’d been talking.

“Ah, uh, even a slash from a lightsaber? That might be a bit difficult to fix with a needle and thread.”

Kriff. Kriff kriff kriff, he did not just say that.

Poe doesn’t seem to take offense.

“Is that a challenge?” he asks, playfully.

Finn rubs his fingers against the back of Poe’s palm, feeling the curly hairs growing on his knuckles. “Maybe. What do I get if I win?”

“Well, first I should warn you that my parents worked with Luke Skywalker himself. My dad knows a thing or two about mending things cut up by a lightsaber. Second…” Poe turns them both toward the eighth barrack block on the path. When they’re close enough to see the names and numbers transcribed on the doors, Finn can’t help a chuckle when he spots DAMERON over a faded 87.

Poe laughs as well as he swipes a key card through the locking mechanism of the door. It beeps open. “Second, I need to know what you want.”

 

***

 

The interior of Poe’s room is a lot like the rest of the D’Qar base: it isn’t much to look at. Finn grew up used to the pristine, often unnatural, cleanliness of the First Order, and even after leaving them, a twinge of nervousness bites at him when he sees the natural, chaotic messes people leave behind. Especially in their private quarters.

Poe’s room seems to double as a storage area, with towers of boxed starfighter parts stacked precariously around the single room like stalagmites. There’s also an unusual amount of datapads and even flimsi-books occupying any flat surface available. Poe must be a voracious reader.

Speaking of which, the pilot lets go of his hands and stretches his arms until there’s an audible pop in his back, which he answers with a groan. He gives Finn an expectant look and says, “You really want to do _that_ with me, huh?”

Finn makes a face, pushing a model starfighter hanging from a string attached to the ceiling. He wobbles slightly. “Well, yeah. I like you, you like me.” Finn turns around and shrugs. “Why not have sex?” He hopes he doesn’t sound as nervous as he feels when he says that.

“And here I thought prizes were supposed to make the winner happy, not the loser.” Poe laughs and moves closer to put his hand back into Finn’s and show him around the room.

“This is the bedroom. And the living room. And the foyer--” He says, sweeping his hand around him, and smiling at Finn’s chuckle. “--That’s the refresher--” He points to a door set in the far wall. “I hope you don’t mind that we’ll be sharing one.”

“I shared barracks and a bathroom with an entire squad of stormtroopers all my life,” Finn says matter-of-factly. “One other guy sounds amazing.”

“Great. That corner is the kitchen. It isn’t much, but it’s better than the stuff they serve in the mess, or Maz’s bar.”

Finn’s ears perk up at that. “Maz’s bar?”

“Right, you don’t know. She set up shop in a hangar around here after, ah, _we_ happened to her castle. You’ll see it when I give you a tour tomorrow. ” Poe turns them back toward a bed surrounded by stacks of boxes and junk and even more datapads. Poe sweeps most of those off, and the clatter causes a shrill amount of beeps to come from near the refresher. Curious, Finn looks over a tower of boxes while Poe cleans off the bed, and finds a familiar ball-droid staring up at him from what could only be described as a metallic cat’s bed. They chirp cheerfully.

“BB-8! Hey, buddy,” says Finn, reaching over to pat the top of BB-8’s head. The rolling churr they make could only be described as a purr. “How are you?”

BB-8 delves into a series of chirps and whistles, which Finn responds with by adding, “Still don’t speak Droid.”

From the bed, Poe calls out. “They’re supposed to be shut off for the night,” he says, and BB-8 rolls back and forth guiltily. Poe raises an eyebrow. “Do you really want your battery to run out, BB?”

BB-8 makes a low, moaning sound. If he had to guess, Finn assumes that means “...no” in Droidspeak.

With one last pat, he returns back to Poe, who is lying sprawled on his back on the now empty bed with his arms bent behind his head. He glances beside him, and Finn gets in, stretching out on his back to stare up at the ceiling. It isn’t easy, and a muscle screams in protest between his shoulder blades. He turns onto his side after that and stares at Poe.

Poe currently has his eyes on an X-Wing dangling from the ceiling, but Finn can feel his attention on him. He isn’t quite sure how. “I’m guessing no sex in that thing?” says Poe, meaning the bacta suit.

“I mean,” Finn holds up one of his hands and makes a jerking motion. “My hands still work fine.”

Poe blinks before bursting into a fit of giggles.

“And here I thought you wouldn’t even know what sex was.”

“Excuse me?!”

Poe’s giggles fade into a smile, and he rolls onto his side and presses his forehead against Finn’s. “Doesn’t the First Order not let you do that sort of thing?”

“Poe, I was a stormtrooper, not a eunuch. They don’t _encourage_ it, but it’d be stupid for them not to teach us anything.”

“Okay, okay, I was wrong,” Poe murmurs, moving against the bed until he’s comfortable, and shuts his eyes. Finn has never seen eyelashes so Snoke-damned long. “No sex tonight. Let’s just sleep. Got a lot to do tomorrow.”

Finn is perfectly fine with that. He hadn’t been able to sleep very well since waking up from his coma, but since coming here, he can feel the need plucking at his consciousness. It could also be the fact that Poe is clearly exhausted, no doubt from the missions he’s sent out on, and, as Doctor Kalonia had told him, Force sensitives are natural empaths able to feel the ebb and flow of emotion around them.

Finn gets up moves around the room until he finds a light switch. He shuts it off, and only the dull amber shine of working lights set into the floor show him how to get back to Poe without toppling over box towers.

Poe is still in the clothes he’d worn when he’d gone to the infirmary to pick up Finn. That doesn’t seem to bother him, however, and Finn couldn’t care less. He crawls back onto the bed and settles as close as possible to Poe.

“Hey, Poe?” Finn murmurs.

Poe swallows, grunts out an answer. “Hm?”

“Why does BB-8 have a bed?”

Poe’s lips curl up into a sleepy smile. “They’re like a cat,” he mumbles and soon his breathing deepens and he’s asleep. Finn follows suit soon after.

That night, Finn dreams that he’s on the Finalizer.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn has a nightmare... or DOES he?
> 
> ... Yeah. Yeah, no. I can't do normal chapter summaries. ("Pop, how about you just don't do chapter summaries at all? These are very unprofessional." Mhm, because I write fanfic for fun to be professional. PBBBBBBBT! May cockrot destroy you, you scum-sucking, camel-faced, walrus-fucking liar. I'll do what I want.)
> 
> Um. Anyways. Here's the fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's already February, huh? Can't believe it, huh?
> 
> I'll try to update weekly during this month, and then possibly finish this fic up once and for all near the end of March. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
> 
> -Pop
> 
> PS: I beta read this, so all mistakes are mine and I would greatly appreciate having them pointed out.

Finn is in a room he doesn’t quite recognize, staring into the dilapidated eyes of black and burned-out helmet. It rests on top of a pedestal, like a figurine of a god on a shrine, beside a large pit of gray ash.

Black helmet and a pit of gray ash…

Uh-oh.

His mouth moves against his will.

“Grandfather… you must help me.”

Yep. He definitely knows that voice. But why the hells is it coming out of  _ his _ mouth?

Finn realizes that he’s kneeling before the pedestal, and his face hurts like it had the first day he’d woken up. The pain on his back is dull yet constant, like a decades-old ache.

Ren slowly pushes himself to standing in the darkened room, tongue pressing against his and (somehow) Finn’s teeth as he takes a deep breath. The inability to control his own breathing sends a sudden charge of panic racing through Finn. Added to the confusion he has at being _ inside Ren _  (he can’t believe he just thought that), he pushes back as far and as strongly as he can.

There’s a feeling like something tearing, or snapping like a rubber band, and in the blink of an eye, Finn is looking down at Ren instead of from within him. His body is his own, even if it is oddly see-through, and he remains utterly silent as he watches Ren.

The man looks like shit. Finn can’t help but smile.

Ren’s hair is still long and messy, reaching past his shoulders in wavy, black strands. His face is a tapestry of bruises, the worst of which are centered around a terrible scar bisecting his face. One of his eyes is pressed closed from the wound. It looks painful, and Finn brings his own hand to his face. Had Rey done that?

And why could he feel it like a wound on himself?

Something in Ren’s stance changes. His shoulders stiffen and square, and lines deepen on his face as he glances around the room with the glassy glint of a predatory animal in his one working eye. His gaze sweeps across Finn, and passes over him without taking notice.

A muscle twitches in Ren’s jaw.

“Who’s there?” Kylo Ren asks, and Finn -- despite knowing that Ren can’t see him -- has the urge to hide. To run. “I can sense you! I--”

A pressure brushes along Finn’s mind, acknowledging his presence.

_ “You.” _

Ren turns, and Finn steps back out of a habit born from years in the First Order. _ Don’t piss off a Ren,  _ or this is what you got: a rage-filled face bearing down on you, a lightsaber through the gut, nice and quick, if you were lucky.

Ren’s eyes focus on him for a brief moment before glancing erratically around.

“I know you’re here, I can sense you,” he growls, turning madly about.  **_“Answer me!”_ **

Finn stays where he is, and watches Ren’s eyes pass over him a few more times.  _ He can’t see me.  _ Finn grins.

“You can’t see me, asshole!” he yells.

Ren turns in his direction, eyes wide.

Finn’s mouth snaps shut. Ren begins to walk towards him, slow at first like a jungle cat stalking it’s prey, and then faster. Finn takes one step back through the air, and then another and another. 

Ren’s just about to bear down on him. Finn can taste his heartbeat in his throat as he clenches his hands into fists and holds them out in front of him. Ren isn’t slowing down. Finn is

awake, and staring at model starfighter hanging in the air, drifting slightly from a vent breeze. Dull, early dawn light cuts through the gloom and runs down the durasteel-plated walls. Finn takes in a deep breath and open his eyes a little wider. His mouth tastes like cotton, and there’s a dull throb between his eyebrows. He blinks a few times. What was that? A dream? Finn rolls his shoulders against the softness of his pillow, and feels at his side for Poe, just to know that someone is nearby.

His hand hits cool, empty sheets.

He sits straight, and his head pounds with the sudden movement.

“Poe?” he calls out into the empty room, a bit more shakily than he should have. When no reply comes, he swallows. It tastes like he swallowed all the sand on Jakku. “BB-8?”

A slow churr answers him, and Finn throws of the bed covers and all but sprints to the droid’s little bed.

“Where’s Poe?” he asks.

BB-8 beeps tiredly at him.

“I don’t understand you.” Finn sighs loudly, running his hand over his hair, pressing it flat. “Seriously, can you just show me?”

A single dull beep, and BB-8 burrows deeper into their bed. Finn grits his teeth.

“Please! This is an emergency!”

As if on cue, the pain in Finn’s head grows greater. He stumbles back, knocking a small tower of boxes over with his back. Gripping the sides of his head, he tries to keep the room from spinning and fails. Distantly, he hears the thumping roll of BB-8 coming out of their bed and coming over to him, beeping shrilly. Finn shuts his eyes and squats, still clutching his head.

“Where’s… Poe?” Finn grits out.

BB-8 trills and starts to roll away, making noises for him to follow. Finn can’t. He can’t even stand. He--

_ \--swer me. _

The headache suddenly fades like morning mist, and Finn finds his eyes are open, staring at nothing. In place of the headache is a voice, distant and close at once.

_ Answer me. _

BB-8 is still beeping and bumping at Finn’s leg, but Finn isn’t listening to them. He’s listening to the voice that feels like it’s being broadcasted in his head. A familiar voice.

_ Answer me or I will kill you. _

Finn stands so fast that BB-8 shrieks in surprise. He looks down at the droid, sweat beading on his skin.

“Take me to Poe.”

~*~

By the time Finn finds Poe, he’s out of breath and the soles of his feet ache from sprinting across duracrete barefoot. Poe’s initial smile at his presence fades when he sees the look on Finn’s face. He hands a tray of food to someone beside him and rushes over to Finn.

“Hey, are you okay?” Poe places a hand on Finn’s back. “Finn?”

Finn takes in a few deep breaths. “Something’s… wrong. It’s Ren. He’s -- I had a dream, and--” the more he tries to explain it, the less sense it makes. Despite Poe’s worried expression never leaving his face, it begins to take on a different edge. When Finn finally gives up trying to explain what had just happened, Poe takes him by the hand.

“We should go talk to the General.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "General Leia, I can hear Kylo Ren in my head."
> 
> "Shit, it's Darth Vader and Luke all over again. MAZ. GET OVER HERE! WE NEED A YODA STAND-IN, ON THE DOUBLE! TEACH FINN HOW TO BE BADASS AND THEN PROMPTLY DIE. I'm kidding, don't die. Han already did that. Unless you can come back as a pirate queen Force ghost. That would be awesome."
> 
> (at this rate, my notes are gonna become a fic all on their own)

**Author's Note:**

> I like long walks on the beach and drowning myself in a whirlpool of kudos. Comments, too. They're like the seaweed of this analogy. Bookmarks are fish because they can show up and disappear in an instant. What would that make subs, you ask? Friggin' SUBMARINES, DUH.
> 
> If this chapter didn't convince you that I am a master of the written word, these end notes *must* have. I'm sure of it.


End file.
